Placing proper floor diagrams with position points in strategic areas of a restaurant is critical to providing excellent dining service. You also cannot rely on the fact that the floor diagrams are in the computer system.

Case in point #1: What happens when a new waiter, carrying 3 hot pasta dishes, walks alone from the kitchen to a busy dining room and can’t make out the correct table for the food to arrive at? Does the server place the 3 hot pasta dishes somewhere and then log on to the computer to see which is the correct table? I do not think. The waiter is going to guess which possibly results in a costly mistake of food going to the wrong table. If the floor diagram has been placed correctly in an inconspicuous spot for the server to take a quick look at it, then the food gets to the table quickly and smoothly.

Case in point #2: I recently had a situation at a restaurant where the owner was changing the numbers of the dining room tables during the actual shift, spelling disaster. His explanation was that he needed to keep track of the coupons being distributed for the restaurant’s marketing campaign, which used a separate numbered table for each individual coupon.

The owner did not realize that there was no way to provide excellent restaurant customer service by using this system. No wonder the dining room staff often delivered delicious and delicately prepared food to the wrong table. How many times does this happen in one night, one week, one month? Why not take a handful of money and just throw it out the front door?

Here are some simple but important concepts to help improve restaurant customer service. There are too many operations that do not implement these concepts, which causes many unnecessary errors. This translates to lost revenue and a poor service reputation that will prevent repeat business.

Is that how it works:

Diagrams of the dining room floor, with the correct numbering for each table and position point (explained below), should be clearly printed and provided to all dining room service personnel, with additional printouts available for any future servers who hire. These essential diagrams should be posted in strategic locations for easy viewing by all staff, preferably out of sight of the customer.

Establishing position points is essential if you are trying to improve restaurant customer service. Basically, any diner in the restaurant can be identified by a particular table number and seat number. Keeping up with position points will not be a problem for a server as long as all dining service staff know about the arrangement in advance. It is very important to establish position point #1 for each table. The easiest way to determine position point #1 is to have the customer’s back directly in line with (or as close as possible) to a particular location in the restaurant, such as the kitchen, front/back door, or perhaps a particularly visible element. decor.

Every client whose back is closest to this particular location is position #1. Once established, rotate clockwise around the table, identifying each customer as position #2, 3, and so on. If a seat is empty, it should be assigned a position number anyway, as a guest may be late. If customer position points are not used, a waiter, holding hot, heavy plates, will call out plates to customers because they do not know the exact positions. This wastes valuable time and energy, not to mention how unprofessional it looks. Also, customers, often in the middle of a conversation or a laugh, will be unnecessarily interrupted.

Position points should be clearly explained in every waiter training program. The main objective is for the waiter to serve food and drink accurately, safely and cleanly. This is more likely to happen when there is advance knowledge of the table and seat numbers well in advance.

The above concepts give dining room service staff “a sense of where they are”, which is extremely important, especially if the restaurant is new or the staff are new to the restaurant. It improves the ability to communicate, which in turn will improve restaurant customer service for everyone.